...and he got the Nobel Prize in Economics?

Actually that is not how statistics work. Confidence level does not tell you whether your claim is in the “ball park” of the real value. It is rather a way to asses the validity of your claim. In most statistical studies (even in the social sciences), confidence levels at 95% is the minimum needed to assume the validity of your hypothesis. That is two standard deviations from the mean. A 68% confidence level would generally be considered insignificant, the hypothesis was not supported.

If the hypothesis that higher interest rates lowers rent inflation is only supported by a 68% confidence level, then the standard practice would be to reject the hypothesis.

To sum up, we do not know with high confidence whether raising interest rates will lower rent inflation.

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